The verb pair приходить/прийти is usually translated as “to arrive, come.” Notice that there is an й in the perfective infinitive:

In English we often use the preposition “at” with the verb “arrive,” so we have to bear in mind that for Russians arrival is a motion; that is, you complement the verb with either в/на + accusative or with к + dative:

Now here's an interesting quirk. Compare these two sentences:

1. Профессор пришёл в университет в восемь часов утра.
2. Профессор пришёл в Москву в восемь часов утра.

Although the sentences are grammatically identical, (1) sounds perfectly natural, whereas (2) sounds awful. That's because the stems ход- and ид- often imply going somewhere by foot, and it's quite uncommon to travel to a city by foot. In other words, avoid приходить/прийти when talking about travel over a long distance.

One last quirk. When someone knocks at a door, in English the response is “Come in.” Beginning students sometimes translate that as «Приходите, пожалуйста». A Russian will never say приходите in that context because the person knocking has in fact already arrived. Instead a Russian will express that idea with входить/войти “to enter”:

The word красавица, which means “beautiful girl,” has the same root as «красивый», “beautiful or handsome”, «красота» “beauty” and «красный» “red.” Sometimes it can be translated as “beauty” as in the name of the famous fairy tales, «Спящая красавица» “Sleeping Beauty” and «Красавица и чудовище» “Beauty and the Beast.”

When I think of красавица, I imagine a pretty girl from the Russian countryside of Gogol’s time. She is wearing a colorful dress and a kokoshnik-tiara. Her hair is neatly braided in one long thick braid, and her big brown eyes are coyly cast down. She is the classic «русская красавица» “Russian beauty” that has been praised by so many literary masters.

The masculine form of this word is красавец “stud.” In day-to-day speech we sometimes use «красавец» or «красавчик» to express our approval or when we are pleasantly surprised with someone’s behavior:

«Красавица» can be used in a similar way as well:

I have a personal history with this particular word. When I was a little girl, I could not pronounce some letters. The letter “r” gave me the most trouble. My mom would make me read and do various exercises for at least thirty minutes a day before I could go play with my friends. Needless to say, I really wanted to break this vicious cycle and learn to say the “r” right so I could finally go run around the yard. One day I was home alone, playing with my dolls. For some reason I decided to practice my “r’s”, using the word красавица. It came out so perfectly clear; I could not believe I had nobody home to brag about it to! I remember saying it over and over again, worried that I would lose it… but I never have. When I think about it, it is very neat that it was this word, красавица "beauty", that made my speech more beautiful!

The most generic verb for travelling by air in Russian is летать “to fly.” It is a perfectly regular imperfective verb and conjugates exactly like читать:

This is an indeterminate (multidirectional) verb of motion, which means it has several uses. First of all, in the past tense it can mean a completed trip to and from a place:

By using a unidirectional verb in that context, Russian clearly states that Mom is no longer in Moscow. She went there and then departed. Another example:

The verb can also be used of flying generically or of the ability to fly:

Побежать is the perfective form of the verb бегать “to run.” It incorporates one of the four most irregular verb stems in the Russian language:

Побежать literally means “to run”:

Although the verb does mean “to run,” it's actually used in conversation more often to mean “to take a quick trip” or “to be moving quickly” instead of literally running. The same is true for the English verb “to run” as well, of course.

On the colloquial level the verb can almost mean the equivalent of the English “I'm out of here/I'm gone”:

Russians love their proverbs and pithy sayings. It is amazing how many of them we have and use excessively to express so many different emotions. It seems that we have one for every life situation. We love them almost as much as we do our swear words (Honestly, I once heard a guy speak using just swear words! Quite an experience, I might add…)

«Собака на сене» is one of the very neat expressions we use. It is translated as “dog on hay”. The full saying goes: «собака на сене: и сама не ест, и другим не даёт», “dog on hay: she neither eats it herself, nor lets the others”. It is used when someone does not do something simply out of spite or uses something that others want just so they will not get it.

Here is how my kitty demonstrates it:

There is a really great play written by Lope De Vega that is called «Собака на сене». There a beautiful duchess falls in love with her secretary. She cannot be with him because of the difference in their social status, but at the same time her jealousy is driving her crazy. She is torn between what her honor dictates her and what her heart yearns for. That makes her act like the dog in the proverb: she does not commit to either being with her love or agree to let him go. It is a beautiful love story with a very happy ending.

This play was staged and made into a movie in 1977 by a talented director, Yan Frid. This adaptation is very popular and much loved in Russia. I would recommend for everyone to see it!